Race track (Longchamps)--Paris 41A 1949 - 1950

Editor: Today we’re looking at Robert Frank’s “Race track (Longchamps)--Paris 41A”, a gelatin silver print from 1949-1950. It’s a contact sheet, so it’s like a visual record of a roll of film, revealing the photographer's choices. What stories do you see in this piece? Curator: What I see here isn't just a record, but a conversation. Frank, often celebrated for "The Americans," was deeply concerned with issues of social inequality. Look at the varied expressions, the figures caught in different moments. How do you think this array of fragmented images relates to the social landscape of post-war Paris? Editor: I suppose it offers many points of view? Not a singular, easily digestible truth? Curator: Exactly! Each frame offers a fleeting perspective, like fragments of lived experience. What strikes me is how the medium itself, the contact sheet, mimics the fragmented nature of memory and the subjectivity inherent in any documentation. Editor: So, it’s almost a commentary on the act of photographing, and documenting? Curator: Precisely. The sequencing is so important, as Frank later gained a foothold into cinematic photography. It’s inviting us to consider the constructed nature of narratives and question whose stories are amplified and whose are relegated to the margins. Do you notice any patterns in the crowds depicted? Editor: Hmm, mainly bourgeois people in suits at a racetrack, maybe. It almost makes you wonder, who exactly has access to leisure, pleasure, visibility, and so on. Curator: Absolutely. Frank is urging us to think critically about who is seen, how they are seen, and by whom. A contact sheet reveals his photographic editing practices while offering an insightful message about wealth inequality and its performativity within the postwar setting. Editor: I’ll never look at a contact sheet the same way again! So much for such a seemingly simple item! Curator: It is the medium, after all, through which so many different social commentaries might be communicated and heard, if we choose to use our eyes and ears with careful consideration.